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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think these people were selfish and rude.

415 replies

cakeoclock · 28/11/2011 14:50

The push chair v wheelchair on a bus just reminded me what happened this weekend.

I was christmas shopping with friends (one in a wheelchair) in Harvey Nicks Leeds and it was pretty busy. We stood waiting for the lift, the doors opened and it was rammed full of people (no push chairs). Not one of the miserable gits got out to make space for the wheelchair just looked away until the doors shut and we had to wait ages for another lift. There were escalators less than a minute walk from the lift.

AIBU to think that this is lazy, selfish and awful and to hope if any of you are reading you feel ashamed.

OP posts:
Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 09:43

Without wishing to seem argumentative FolkGirl, and I stress again that I agree with much of what you have written, you keep quoting necromantic and seem to be implying that her posts are the reason the thread was difficult.

I would suggest that some of the comments in opposition of the op were very unpleasant. This was not a nice discussion derailed by neuronantic. Some of the posts were grim.

It was, as always, six of one half a dozen of the other.

Hullygully · 29/11/2011 09:44

I don't think one could say it's ALWAYS that Paggy, sometimes it's four and eight or even one and eleven.

choceyes · 29/11/2011 09:47

YANBU at all!

Ofcourse the people were being rude. I would most certainly have got out of the lift and let your friend in. My DH would have done the same. I can't believe anybody wouldn't?

I hate taking lifts if I don't have to (have to most of the time as I have a double buggy) and I can never understand these people who wait aaages for the lift when they are perfectly capable of taking the escalators or the stairs.

Really annoys me, when I have my double buggy and nobody moves to aside to let me in. I'd understand if they were old people, then I'd let the lift go, but if they look like young able bodied people (and they usually are), I force my buggy into the lift even if it ends up on the top of peoples feet.
If I waited for the next lift I could be waiting for ever especially in department stores or shopping centres.

Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 09:48

Yes. That's true.

TroublesomeEx · 29/11/2011 09:51

Pagwatch, no you're right, of course.

TandB · 29/11/2011 09:51

I am trying to imagine a John Lewis bungalow. That would be one large footprint!

Hullygully · 29/11/2011 09:56

Look at all the lovely PARDING!

John Lewis has too much stuff anyway. Everywhere does. Let's get rid of all frippery and non-essentials and then we can have bungalow shops and no issues.

win win.

LunaticFringe · 29/11/2011 09:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 10:01

My DD fell over on the escalator in John Lewis. Cut a huge hole in her knee.
Stairs are safest.

Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 10:03

The utopia of bungalow shops has a certain allure. But then I think
Ikea
Currys
Primark.

And liberty is the best shop in the world.
I'm not sure

Hullygully · 29/11/2011 10:06

Do we need Currys?

I think I'd get rid of it.

Ikea are quite bungalowish, they could just spread out a bit more

Primark, we could keep that as it's cheap and provides employment for all the little furrin kiddies and get rid of other clothes shops and then it could be bungalowised.

Libertys - is that not entirely filled with unnecessary printed stuff?

Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 10:10

It is filled with unnecessary printed stuff. That is it's charm. I bought my wedding dress there [sigh]

I love nooks and cranny shops. Not big old flat souless ones.
I run up and down the stairs with joy, before my hips give out.

Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 10:11

Ds1 gets panic attacks in Ikea. He always gets lost in office furniture. We have to comfort him with meatballs

TroublesomeEx · 29/11/2011 10:13

Or one of their hotdogs?

Pagwatch · 29/11/2011 10:14

never eat the hotdogs!

NinkyNonker · 29/11/2011 10:17

Those hotdogs always make me wonder just how accurately they are named...

Davsmum · 29/11/2011 10:31

Why don't people just do what THEY feel is right and not judge others who may feel differently ?
I should imaging several people would all have to decide to get out of the lift otherwise there would be no point.
Personally, I don't know why able bodied people would use a lift if there are stairs or escalators so I would tend to assume they had a reason to do so.
If there were signs saying 'Do NOT use the lift if there is a wheelchair bound person needing it' then I would follow the rule.

I really do not believe that my time is any less valuable than someone in a chairs time !

sozzledchops · 29/11/2011 10:33

I get twitchy in Ikea, just want to run against the flow and refuse to go where they tell me to go. Love Toys r us, feel a trip coming on.

NinkyNonker · 29/11/2011 10:34

It isn't, but you have the choice to use the stairs or escalator to bypass the queues, a person in a chair is at the mercy of the lifts...like my mother who was stuck for over half an hour. Would you have waited that long or used one of the other options?

If one person made the effort to offer, others may follow.

Neuromantic · 29/11/2011 12:04

If you would conciously choose to make people wait, on purpose, because you dont like my attitude, thenquite frankly you are a cunt anyway.
Ofcourse someone gets annoyed and sarky when they are repeatedly ignored, over znd over again while people pontificate on issues they know nothing about. When twenty people say why dont they just wait for the next one after b eing told over and ovet and over again that its not that simple.
I dont care what you think ofmy attitude, the type of people who are happy to make life harder fir those with already difficult lives dont deserve an opinion on anything.

TroublesomeEx · 29/11/2011 12:10

You were saying Pagwatch...

OrmIrian · 29/11/2011 12:15

I got stuck in a lift when I was v pregnant with DS1. In Mothercare in Milton Keynes. With DH, a very capable friend and another couple with a baby. I was starting to freak out a bit as I am not good in confined spaces but capable friend made me sit on the floor and started a sing song. Which at least made the firemen laugh when they turned up to get us out.

Hence I would never willingly take a lift. Ever. So IMO they were rude, selfish and a little bit mad.

sozzledchops · 29/11/2011 12:28

Not even that keen on lifts as I feel a little bit out of control, used to wonder if a lift was in free fall and you jumped just as it was about to hit the ground would you be ok. Husband has informed me 'no', bummer.

cakeoclock · 29/11/2011 12:34

Oh Pag totally off topic but I bought my wedding dress in liberty too. It was beautiful. It is one of my favourite shops ever!

OP posts:
wannaBe · 29/11/2011 12:43

I haven't read the whole thread..

But tbh I don't think it's black and white - and I speak as someone with a disability although I am not in a wheelchair.

While I appreciate that we should have consideration for others I think this goes both ways and that no one person deserves more consideration than anyone else purely based on their circumstances. Yes sometimes we will do things to benefit someone else but this should not be an automatic expectation - we are all individuals and all have individual lives and needs and circumstances and one does not necessarily take precedence over the other.

I also think it is extremely patronising to make the blanket statement/assumption that because someone has a disability they necessarily have a more difficult life - this is absolutely not the case. Someone with a disability may have to do things slightly differently to someone without but this does not automatically equal a hard life.

My disability precludes me from being able to drive a car/do certain jobs/I need certain technology to make the computer accessible/I need either a guide dog or a cane in order to have full mobility outside. But I certainly do not consider that my life is any more difficult than anyone else's based on the fact I happen to be considered to have a disability, and I hate this inference that it is. In fact to make that assumption still puts the disabled on an unequal footing with the able-bodied where able-bodied equals lucky/should be grateful/should make allowances, and the disabled equals unlucky/has a hard life/is deserving of favoured treatment on the basis of disability.

To the point in the op, perhaps if everyone had been queueing to get in the lift I could see that people might be more inclined to allow the wheelchair user in first, although even then I certainly don't think it is an entitlement, but I can see that people might think more along those lines. However, given the people in the lift were already there, had already started their journey on another floor, I certainly don't think it should be an automatic assumption to get out halfway to where you're going and allow the wheelchair user in.

Those people were in a lift for a reason; their need to be there is not any less justified based on the fact they could take the stairs.

And yes, the wheelchair user could wait for the next lift. And yes, the next lift might be full also - it is highly unlikely that every lift for the rest of the day is going to be full - at best he might need to wait a few minutes, in the same way those expected to get out would need to take a few extra minutes to get where they were going. Sometimes I have to cross busy main roads. Sometimes it is difficult because of the sheer amount of traffic. Sometimes cars stop for me, and sometimes they don't - which means that I have to wait an extra few minutes to cross the road. I don't have an alternative - I have to cross that road. But that doesn't mean that any car driving down it should stop for me just in case the next one doesn't and I have to wait a few more minutes to do so, although I am of course always very grateful when they do.

As for those on the thread saying that they know someone in a wheelchair who would ram the lift/wished they had a cattle-prod on the front for people like that - what a bloody entitled attitude - they might want to be careful not to overbalance under the weight of that chip on their shoulder. Hmm

Having a disability does not make you any more entitled any more than not having a disability makes you ignorant/rude/selfish if you don't always put the perceived needs of the disabled first..

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